


I Anticipate By Sympathy

by EllyCM



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF
Genre: M/M, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 17:37:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8336758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllyCM/pseuds/EllyCM
Summary: Passive Aggressive Letter Writing 
Basically, Hamilton composing Cold In My Professions &c  after being handed a surprising bit of news he wasn't supposed to see.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry half of this turns into speechifying rather than storytelling and in the end I'm really just indulging my Feelings (they are legion)

 

Hamilton rubbed his palms together, urging the blood flow into his fingers. He’d been writing since before dawn, and even in April the mornings were still crisp and cold. He sat at his place at a long table covered with papers and envelopes, ink wells and blotters. The other aides had been trickling in, not a one of them surprised to see Hamilton already there.

He looked up as Meade entered with a handful of newly arrived correspondence. Across from Hamilton at the table, Harrison groaned.

“And the work carries on, unceasingly,” he said.

Hamilton raised an eyebrow and regarded him a small, wry grin. “He is happy who’s circumstances suit his temper,” he said. “But he is more excellent who can suit his temper to his circumstance.”

Harrison blinked back at him. Hamilton shook his head and waved his hand at him. If Laurens were here-

Hamilton looked back to his writing.

Meade laughed. “I think he told you to stop whining, Harry. It’s Hume.” He sat beside Hamilton and unwrapped a thick packet of letters. Each one was opened except for the top, which Meade slit open and skimmed over.

“Hm,” he said, and Hamilton glanced up at him. “General Thompson is on parole, and he sent this along. He says he picked up several letters from overseas that had stalled in New York, and brought them out with him. He regrets that they had to opened and checked over. He entrusts us with finding each their correct destination.”

Harrison scoffed. “Very generous of the good General.”

Hamilton  returned to his work, and then Meade dropped three of the opened letters, tied loosely with twine, in front of him.

“You can take care of those,” Meade said.

Hamilton picked it up and cursed himself silently when he felt his pulse tick up.

“They’re for John,” Meade added quietly. Hamilton’s eyes flicked to Meade, who gave a small smile and went back to his task.

Hamilton laid the letters to the side, and took out a fresh sheet. If he was to forward the letters to Laurens, he would take the opportunity to write the man. Gladly. He wasn’t sure where to start- not because he had nothing to say, but because if he let himself, he would have so very much to say.

He remembered Laurens’ voice, the night before he left. _“You must promise to write me, but be sensible to the possibility of unwanted eyes on your words. More so than I know you will be wont to!”_ They had laughed about it, but Hamilton had been both touched that Laurens knew him so well, and frustrated that his friend had put restrictions on their discourse before he had even left. For a man who could be so bold on the battlefield, Laurens was always so cautious in these other matters. Hamilton sat staring at the blank page a long moment, and then his gaze slid over to the bound envelopes.

He supposed strictly speaking, he had no need to read the letters. They had already been checked over and deemed innocent. Hamilton knew Laurens had spent a great deal of time in England and in Switzerland for his education, so it was not entirely surprising that he would receive a letter from that direction. Hamilton fingered the paper, trying to remember what Laurens had said about any particular ties or friendships there, and then admonishing himself for his needling curiosity.

He put the task aside for the time being, noticing a smirking glance from Meade which he studiously ignored, and launched into a busy day of work.

Later that night, most everyone else fallen into sleep, Hamilton sat by a candle, poring over some personal reading and correspondence, as was his habit. He had felt strangely annoyed and distracted all day. He rubbed at his face, just a little too hard, and finally gave up.

He reached into his uniform jacket and took out the letters addressed to Laurens. Having made the decision, he launched straight in, slipping the twine, unfolding the pages and reading through them quickly. His face set in a pinched mode, as when trying to work out a particularly difficult piece of translation, and stayed there as he finished the letter.

He sat, holding it tightly in his fingers, staring as the inked letters started to swim together in his vision, until he realized he’d clutched and bent the corner of the paper. He huffed and stuffed the letter back into its envelope and tossed it onto his small desk.

He crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at it.

_Mrs Laurens. My Dear Husband. Your daughter._

Hamilton’s mouth spread into a sharp and hostile grin, and he shook his head.

Laurens was married. He had a _wife_ across the ocean. He had a _child_. He and Hamilton had known each other well over a year, and the subject had never been mentioned.

Hamilton wiped at his mouth, agitated at his own thoughts. They’d not merely known each other. Hamilton had never felt as close to anyone as he did to Laurens. They had shared their thoughts on politics, the war, literature, the past and the future. They had shared their fears, their hopes, their bad days and good over the last year. When Hamilton had returned to camp after being gravely ill, he had returned to a Laurens who was no longer reticent to admit something obvious and terrible that had been growing between them- they loved one another. With all the intimacy and passion with which men were not allowed to love one another.

But they had, and while acting on their feelings had been harder for Laurens- worried about his name and his father and the danger to his military career and haunted by what had happened to his little brother the last time he’d let himself be distracted in that manner- but Hamilton was smart and brave and unwilling to relinquish this feeling he’d found. Knowing that John loved him, Alexander had felt nothing so strongly as the need to embrace it. To embrace _him_.

He hadn’t had something like that to call his own in a long, long time.

Hamilton shook himself from his thoughts, looking back at the letter.

_To call my own._  He had to laugh at his misapprehensions. It was the next thing to a lie, and Hamilton hadn’t thought he and Laurens _lied_ to each other. He felt a heat burning the back of his throat that he wanted to name anger but knew was more correctly called hurt.

Yet, if Laurens had kept this from him, it had to be for a reason. Hamilton rubbed at the back of his neck, easing out the stiff and strained muscles. _Maybe he didn’t want me to know because he thought it would change how I feel,_ he thought. He closed his eyes, and unbidden came images of Laurens. His aristocratic bearing so out of place cloaked in all his unguarded, earnest passion for what he believed. The unjaded excitement and drive of a man who sought the best in other people, because he felt it so deeply in himself. Hamilton remembered lying next to Laurens, pressed together on the narrow cot a night when they had their lodgings to themselves. He remembered the touches and the way his lips had tasted and the sweat on Laurens’ neck as Hamilton had buried his face there at the last moment. He remembered all of it, but more than that even he remembered the way Laurens had spoken, his eyes sparking with the fire of his ideas, and Hamilton had only been able to smile at him, and tuck a stray hair behind his ear. _What?_ Laurens had said. _Nothing. You’re beautiful, Jack,_ Hamilton had responded, trying to keep the note of sadness from his voice. Because though Hamilton was younger, he’d been too well acquainted already in his life with the yawning chasm of difference between the faith he wanted to have in the goodness of others, and the stained and empty reality that most often greeted him. He had kissed Laurens gently, and let his friend retain that belief a little longer.

_He feels everything so much,_ Hamilton thought now, _and takes it on so personally._ He opened his eyes again to glare at the letters. He sat forward again, pulled out a fresh sheet of paper just as he had that morning. He dipped and blotted his pen. He had to make sure Laurens knew that it was all right. That things would be unchanged between them.

He paused for a moment. He wouldn’t pretend not to be annoyed. He _was_ annoyed, but he understood. He knew Laurens well enough to understand. But, he also knew that Laurens knew _him_ well enough to accept a certain amount of rebuke over the offense. 

But first, he would give to Laurens, like a flag of truce over torn up battleground, the nearly overwhelming truth he had been coming to realize of late.

Simply, that Hamilton missed him. He missed him more than he had thought it possible to miss a person. He’d buried himself in work, he’d added to his private studies, he’d helped compose some inappropriate- though awfully clever- drinking songs with the lads. Yet still, every day, he caught himself looking up to tell Laurens some interesting piece of news, or to poke fun at some poor major’s spelling, or deliver some ribald joke. He would look up, and Laurens wouldn’t be there, and Hamilton would feel a pang in his stomach like hunger. Only so much worse. They’d been hungry a lot. He was a soldier, he could deal with that.

He hadn’t intended for _this_ to happen. In fact, he’d actively resisted anything like this happening, for a long time.

God, he missed him.

So Hamilton lowered his pen, and began his letter.

_Cold in my professions,_ he wrote, _warm in my friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power, by action rather than words, to convince you that I love-_

He started the next sentence, then pulled his pen back with a frown, realizing he’d forgotten perhaps the most important word. He scribbled it in above.

_-you._

I miss you and I love you. As plainly as he could say it, dressed in the discourse of a dear friend that would save them if prying eyes got ideas, yet he knew it would read clear as day to Laurens. Hamilton felt the hunger pang again, looking at his words, and he bit his lip. He hated it. He hated this feeling. He hated it and he lived for it.

_Damn you, John,_ he thought.

He began writing again.

_I shall only tell you that since you bade us Adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you._

He couldn’t stop now. His pen kept moving, explaining to his friend in his own manner just what a mess he was.

_Indeed, my friend, it was not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind, and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free of particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent of the caprice of others._

Hamilton smiled, though his eyes were damp and his throat tight. He would make sure Laurens knew who’s fault this all was.

_You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent. But as you have done it and as we are generally indulgent to those we love, I shall not scruple to pardon the fraud you have committed, on condition that for my sake, if not for your own, you will always continue to merit the partiality which you have so artfully instilled into me._

Hamilton sat back, wiping at his eyes while also grinning at his own wit. He let out a breath, checking that the others were still sleeping, and dipped his pen again.

He’d made his confessions, and done everything he could to make sure Laurens knew that, whatever distress the news of _Mrs Laurens_ had wrought, that Hamilton’s affections had not changed. Would not change.

He wrote a bit more about Laurens’ endeavors in South Carolina- trying to hold back his own skepticism regarding the chances of success- and went on to reassure Laurens that no one held ill will against him for accepting his recent promotion. Hamilton winced as he found himself being perhaps overly indulgent - for he knew Laurens would judge himself more harshly than any of the rest of them could- but then had he not just said as much in his opening paragraph?

At last he felt he must mention the letters. He tapped them with his fingertips, and remembered what it had felt like to receive letters from Laurens this last while. He sighed and wrote

_I anticipate by sympathy the pleasure you must feel from the sweet converse of your dearer self in the enclosed letters. I hope they may be recent._

Hamilton eyed the lines, wondering if perhaps he’d laid it on a little _too_ thickly. But then, that was exactly the point. Get across his exasperation with the situation, in a brusque sort of flippancy which Laurens would well comprehend. He told Laurens how he’d come into possession of the letters, and added a line mentioning his daughter, as though it were nothing. As though the fact that Laurens had-

Well, enough of that. Hamilton wet his lips, rearranged his seat on the chair and dove into his plan of attack.

_And Now my Dear Jack-_

He paused, looked at the soubriquet, and crossed it out. He was aiming to land a gentle indictment, and he removed the extra sign of affection and familiarity. He continued

_And Now my Dear, on the subject of wife, I empower and command you to get me one in Carolina._

He had to admit he felt a small twinge of guilt over what he was about to do, but at the same time he felt entirely justified. _So you have a wife,_ he thought as he blotted the ink from his pen, _let’s see how little you think of the subject when you’re on the other side._ He went on to list all the attributes of this perfect woman that Laurens was to secure for him, with several jabs at both the institution of marriage and, to be sure he came across correctly, at himself.

And then Hamilton’s smile turned sharp at the edges.

_It will be necessary for you to give an account of the lover- his_ size _, make, quality of mind and_ body, _achievements, expectations, fortunes, &c. In drawing my picture, you will no doubt be civil to your friend; _

Hamilton paused for just a moment, feeling a slight thrill at the thought of the flush that would creep over Laurens’ face when he read what Hamilton was about to write.

_-mind you do justice to the length of my nose, and don’t forget that I-_

Hamilton’s smile was wide as he finished the thought, and he pulled his hand back to read it over. Laurens would probably burn the letter after _that_ , he decided. _But not until he’s read it twenty times over_ , he thought.

He was feeling rather warm himself. He glanced around the room, wishing it weren’t so _occupied._ He returned to his letter. Time to relieve Laurens of the guilt Hamilton had so purposely stoked, and let his friend off the proverbial hook.

He told Laurens he was joking, more or less, and had meant to impart some share of the damnable jealousy Hamilton himself -though he was not expressly admitting it- had perhaps felt.

He looked over the letter, generally pleased with himself that it would achieve its aim, which prompted him to throw in a self-deprecating remark, which was obviously false in its modesty, all the same. He rubbed a thumb over his lips, and closed with another sentiment buried under the cover of language, though one he dearly felt.

_I have gratified my feelings, by lengthening out the only kind of intercourse now in my power with my friend. Adieu._

_Yours_

He signed off with his name. He sprinkled powder over the page to dry the ink, and sat back in his chair. He thought of Laurens warning him to be _sensible_ in his letters, and chuckled. _You’re going to be most disappointed, Jack,_ he thought.

Hamilton packed the letter away. He would send it along with the letters from the apparent Mrs. Laurens the next day, after he’d had a chance to transcribe it cleanly. He snuffed his candle, undressed and tucked himself into the small space afforded him on the bed. He closed his eyes.

Laurens was married.

He sighed, mentally begging Morpheus to come down upon him. Bash him over the head. Laurens was married.

Laurens had a wife.

Laurens had a child.

_And he never told me._

Hamilton frowned and pulled the blanket further up over his face. He thought of Laurens’ face again. Of those eyes looking at him through thick lashes.

Hamilton and Laurens had spent an entire evening, once, discussing the notions of partnership and partner _ing_ in cultures through history. The Greeks and the Romans, and how their own culture had taken much from them, and vehemently thrust aside other things. _This is nothing new,_ Laurens had said, as if to convince himself. _Some men have always felt this way. I just don’t fit into this time, in this place. Ubi libertas ibi patria._ Those lashes.

Laurens had married because he had to. Hamilton knew he would, eventually, marry as well. But he loved Laurens, and the hated hunger in his belly reminded him that he had no choice in the matter. He smiled, his eyes closed, and finally he drifted to sleep thinking to himself _yours forever._


End file.
